Downed state and Respawning

Whenever you go in down state you have a chance of coming back up if you get to rally, I get that much. What I'm wondering is a bit more in depth for tactics on respawning. My question is if you go into the downed state, does your respawn timer start then, or does it start when you are actually defeated?

Couple reasons this would help to know. Say I just got someone into the down state and he has no chance to rally against me, it would be better for me to not finish him off but instead leave him in the down state for the longest time possible to prevent a respawn. But if the respawn starts from the moment you go into down state, then it doesnt matter if I annoy him for an extra 10-20sec into down state since when he does actually die he would just instant respawn if the timer was already going.

Another reason would be when you yourself go into down state, you have to decide if you would be wasting more time trying to rally or just letting yourself die as quick as possible if the respawn timer starts when you are actually defeated.

Respawn time in sPvP begins when you're in the downed state. It is more beneficial to prevent a person from rallying than it is to finish them or let them res. If you see a person in the downed state, the best thing you can do is just to interrupt them with one hit everytime they bandage. Let them bleed out, as they are useless during that time period.

You're actually helping the other team by killing people in the downed state, honestly. This is why I plan to just totally ignore the feature in unranked sPvP matches. People wont understand this concept and finish every downed person they see because they think that's how it works. So I'll let them do that while I kill people.

I don't remember there being a respawn timer even.....but ofc I didn't die much >.>
And didn't pvp. I think you just go to the nearest wapoint as soon as you're defeated.

Tactically it's best to keep someone in a downed state as long as possible I should think, if say it's a 5v5 game and keeping them in that downed state wouldn't also remove you from actively participation in the match.

actually, I'm watching some videos of ppl going into downed state and from the look of it, it seems like a 30sec timer starts when you enter the downed state and once you are killed you have the remaining of that timer to wait. However I found another video where he stayed in the down state for like 40sec or so and when he got killed he had to wait 3sec. So from what I can see so far, you gotta wait 30sec from entering downed state and you have to wait a minimum of 3sec once killed? If anyone has more info it would be appreciated, ty.

I don't remember there being a respawn timer even.....but ofc I didn't die much >.>
And didn't pvp. I think you just go to the nearest wapoint as soon as you're defeated.

Tactically it's best to keep someone in a downed state as long as possible I should think, if say it's a 5v5 game and keeping them in that downed state wouldn't also remove you from actively participation in the match.

You can just place a dot on them (or your pet/minions) if they're in the middle of nowhere. So you don't need to waste your own time preventing him from rallying.

---------- Post added 2012-07-07 at 10:13 PM ----------

Originally Posted by dgkiller

actually, I'm watching some videos of ppl going into downed state and from the look of it, it seems like a 30sec timer starts when you enter the downed state and once you are killed you have the remaining of that timer to wait. However I found another video where he stayed in the down state for like 40sec or so and when he got killed he had to wait 3sec. So from what I can see so far, you gotta wait 30sec from entering downed state and you have to wait a minimum of 3sec once killed? If anyone has more info it would be appreciated, ty.

I can't comment on a minimum, but the downed state triggers the respawn timer. If you die immediately while in the down state, the respawn will be longer than if you've been fighting for 10-20 seconds.

I can't comment on a minimum, but the downed state triggers the respawn timer. If you die immediately while in the down state, the respawn will be longer than if you've been fighting for 10-20 seconds.

Sources of the videos I took my timers from if interested (Youtube):
/watch?v=67Lv30yVHpc&feature=player_detailpage#t=311s
/watch?v=DCl96mVbfqI&feature=player_detailpage#t=379s
(not sure if im allowed to full link)

The first video shows a ~20sec timer after behing in downed state for ~10sec.
The second one shows a ~45+sec downed state with a 3sec respawn timer.

Gonna try to look for more, but > 30sec duration downed state videos are gonna be hard to find since most ppl edit them out and they are also rare.

edit: Found another video
/watch?v=R7_jE4Dm_Cc&feature=player_detailpage#t=135s

Now I am confused however, He went into downed state and up several times and then stated into the downed state over 30sec and got a 15sec respawn timer at the end. So seems like there is more factors in play. Maybe everytime you rally it adds to the next downed state timer?

Respawn time in sPvP begins when you're in the downed state. It is more beneficial to prevent a person from rallying than it is to finish them or let them res. If you see a person in the downed state, the best thing you can do is just to interrupt them with one hit everytime they bandage. Let them bleed out, as they are useless during that time period.

You're actually helping the other team by killing people in the downed state, honestly. This is why I plan to just totally ignore the feature in unranked sPvP matches. People wont understand this concept and finish every downed person they see because they think that's how it works. So I'll let them do that while I kill people.

Fully agree with this logic. It's why I'm tired of people complaining about Smoke Bomb. So what if he keeps poofing away? Prevent him from bandaging, and he's still going to die.

I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

In order to move, it is recommended you use a combination of WASD and the mouse. Also, do not forget you can jump with the space bar.

THANKS!
That's been making me want to ragequit the whole last BWE!
Such stupid game design......I want to use TBAL to move and the numbpad while steering with me foot.
Anet need to fix their broken design or i'll tell the whole internet how wrong it is. I'll TELL! HEAR ME!

OP - sorry, I really don't remember what the timer was. Something I'll make sure to check in BWE3.

Fully agree with this logic. It's why I'm tired of people complaining about Smoke Bomb. So what if he keeps poofing away? Prevent him from bandaging, and he's still going to die.

The difference between smoke bomb and everything else is the choice in the matter. If a thief dies on a point, he's not going to go away anytime soon unless he gets terrible RNG. The thief decides when he dies, not the other player. So now someone has to babysit the thief so he doesn't res and ninja the point, and all advantage his death might bring is mirrored by the fact that you need to waste one of your own players.

Also, the thief gives two more advantages to his team. The first one is information. He's effectively a scout. As I doubt a team will have 2 or 3 people wasting their time dealing with the thief, the thief can tell his own team that point X is weak, as there's only one defender there. Additionally, the thief is still a threat, and the single defender needs to deal with delaying the attackers and preventing the thief from ressing.

There's probably some flaws with that, because I had to come up with that reasoning on the spot.

---------- Post added 2012-07-07 at 10:36 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Squirrelbanes

THANKS!
That's been making me want to ragequit the whole last BWE!
Such stupid game design......I want to use TBAL to move and the numbpad while steering with me foot.
Anet need to fix their broken design or i'll tell the whole internet how wrong it is. I'll TELL! HEAR ME!

OP - sorry, I really don't remember what the timer was. Something I'll make sure to check in BWE3.

If you really want that Thief to die fast, it may seem counter-intuitive, but all ya gotta do is keep him stunned/dazed/feared/otherstatesthatpreventactions. Which do affect you during down state, I believe. He might get away with one Smoke Bomb, but that lasts 3 seconds. It might not be easy to do with imprecise timings, but try to count out 10 seconds, and apply action-preventing CC before those 10 seconds are up, if he's not dead yet. Frankly, it's easy for me to die between the first and second Smoke Bomb.

You still have to set a person to doing it, but if you're going to sit there for several seconds doing the "Finish Them!" animation-yell, it's not much different.

Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-07-08 at 03:03 AM.

I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

If you really want that Thief to die fast, it may seem counter-intuitive, but all ya gotta do is keep him stunned/dazed/feared/otherstatesthatpreventactions. Which do affect you during down state, I believe.

You still have to set a person to doing it, but if you're going to sit there for several seconds doing the "Finish Them!" animation-yell, it's not much different.

The difference is the choice in the matter, like I said. You keep the ranger alive until you need to leave, at which point you go ahead and decide if it is worth finishing him or leaving him alone. A thief takes away that choice. You don't have one.

some of the down'd skills will probably end up geting a balance pass somtime between now and launch. Some are much more useful than others. As for smoke bomb in particular I wouldnt be surprised to see a slight increase in its recharge. It seems most similar to the elementalist vapor form or the mesmer teleport down'd skills, both on a 20s CD currently.

I find the choices of abilitys for a few of the down'd stats rather peculiar to be honest. of the 8 proffessions 5 have an ability that creates distance in one way shape or form be it a fear, a teleport or a knockback. Of the remaining 3 wars have vengeance which is probably one of the better ones assuming you talent it for the rally chance. rangers can call their pet to try to revive them. Engineers seem kinda shafted. They get a boobytrap which while does OK damage probably wont kill anybody and a graple hook to pull someone into them for the boom... most classes have something to get away and survive but the engineer all but screams hey get over here and stomp on me... just seems like a weird choice considering what all the others try to do.

After rewatching some more videos and going at this again, pretty sure I found the easy solution I missed when I was first looking for this, it is based on a global timer every 20sec.

Looking at the timeleft on the match, every :20sec is when there will be a new respawn, so if there is 5:35sec left to the match, and you get finished then you will have a 15sec timer to rez to end up rezing at 5:20

After rewatching some more videos and going at this again, pretty sure I found the easy solution I missed when I was first looking for this, it is based on a global timer every 20sec.

Looking at the timeleft on the match, every :20sec is when there will be a new respawn, so if there is 5:35sec left to the match, and you get finished then you will have a 15sec timer to rez to end up rezing at 5:20

Hah, beat me to it. IIRC in GW1 respawns happened at regular intervals, looks like that's the case here - don't bother looking for any correlation between downed/defeated/respawn times. So if you want to be really pro, make sure you defeat someone right after a respawn happens.

Also, you earn points for your team when an enemy player is defeated, so if you plan on keeping someone in a downed state make sure you don't leave them open for a rally.

After rewatching some more videos and going at this again, pretty sure I found the easy solution I missed when I was first looking for this, it is based on a global timer every 20sec.

Looking at the timeleft on the match, every :20sec is when there will be a new respawn, so if there is 5:35sec left to the match, and you get finished then you will have a 15sec timer to rez to end up rezing at 5:20

Team Fortress 2 also does this. In the developer commentary of the game, they said they did it so you wouldn't respawn alone too often. This makes it easier to launch a counter-offensive if the enemy team is doing too well and it's also more fun to respawn with other players.

Retired Holy PriestAs a rule, I try to act on the internet as I would in real life. If I have offended you, feel free to point it out. Unless I meant to offend you, I will probably apologize.